When you think of the world’s greatest and most iconic fashion designers, many names come to mind. Eva Mendes, Matthew McConaughey and Big Sean probably are not among those names. Granted, these celebs dress to impress at red carpet events, styled by the fashion industry’s finest, but do they have what it takes to create successful brands? Each of them is hoping that the answer is yes.

Eva Mendes has conquered the film industry and now she wants a slice of the fashion pie. Women’s Wear Daily has reported that Mendes entered a partnership with New York & Co. to create a sub-brand, Eva by Eva Mendes.

The actress is very much a style icon, stepping onto red carpets in couture pieces by Christian Dior, Lanvin, Gucci and Prada, to name a few. She also has great everyday style, so some would argue that it is befitting for her to create a collection for the masses.

“She has amazing red carpet style and also has a very unique style off the red carpet,” said Greg Scott, chief executive officer of New York & Co. “She has a real sense of self, which will help us in terms of the design aesthetic. When we look at her, she really is confident.”

Of the upcoming line, Mendes says that she has “a ton of ideas, but it’s a bit early to discuss them. [The project] is taking up all my time, but in the best way possible. Everything I see is a possible design. My mind is consumed by it. I’m fortunate enough to travel to so many exotic places. I could find inspiration in a gate in Istanbul for a plate or a blouse.”

Mendes will be heavily involved with the design process and has begun having creative development meetings.

Matthew McConaughey will be designing a menswear collection for Dillards.  “Just Keep Livin” (JKL) will feature sportswear and swimwear.

“This is my first adventure into the fashion world,” McConaughey said. “I’m enjoying it so far. I like working on the details, the design, the marketing. And I think the JKL philosophy is what makes it unique.”

The JKL philosophy is deeply rooted in family and honor. The Just Keep Livin Foundation was created following the death of McConaughey’s father in 1992.

“It was about keeping his spirit alive and remembering the things he taught me,” he said.

Sean “Big Sean” Anderson is a still-rising star in the hip hop industry, ready to take the fashion world by storm. The ambitious Detroit rapper recently announced that he will be launching a new fashion company, Aura Gold. The company’s fashion label, “Finally Famous” and its first offering, “The Black Collection”, debuted last week in Las Vegas at Project MVMNT, a trade show featuring up and coming trendsetters.

“Launching my own label is a dream come true for me,” Anderson said.  “Even though I have a lot to learn about fashion and the industry, I do know what I like and the small details that make something stand out to me. I look forward to evolving the line with more colors, fabrications and offerings to show the other dimensions of my style progression over time.”

The fashion collective will include t-shirts, pants, sweat shirts, jackets and hats. Fans may view some of Anderson’s designs in the February/March 2013 issue of Vibe Magazine.

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‘The Paperboy’ director Lee Daniels, who is fascinated by life’s down-and-outers, the people surviving on the fringes who will never manage to make it to the center of the arena, says he fell in love with Pete Dexter’s book, on which his new movie is based, when he first read it years ago. “Like ‘Precious’ and ‘Monster’s Ball’, the characters and the events stayed with me. It is a story that needs to be told. As a filmmaker, I like giving voices to characters that don’t ordinarily have them. I’m interested in depicting the people we don’t often see, even though they exist all around us.”

As he has for his previous films, Daniels assembled an ensemble of accomplished actors who each make unexpected departures in their roles. “It is a tribute to the material that we were able to assemble such a fantastic group of actors,” says producer Hilary Shor. “The cast became so much more than the sum of its parts. Every one of them saw the opportunity to do something great, even though it is a relatively small movie and they worked for less money than they usually command.”

In ‘The Paperboy’, Jack James, former swimming champion and current newspaper delivery boy, joins his hotshot investigative journalist brother in an effort to clear a local redneck, Hillary Van Wetter, of the murder of the town sheriff. To play the naïve Jack, who falls hopelessly in love with the death-row convict’s seductive fiancée, Daniels selected Zac Efron, best known as the wide-eyed heartthrob from the teen phenomenon ‘High School Musical’. “If all you know him from is ‘High School Musical’, he seems like an unexpected choice,” says Daniels. “But I saw Zac in a movie called ‘Me and Orson Welles’ and I recognized something very different in him. He is so right for this part.”

Shor believes the role could profoundly change the path of the young actor’s career. “This is going to be a transitional moment for Zac professionally,” she says. “We watched him become a man before our eyes. It is an extraordinary performance and it will surprise a lot of people to see him in this light.”

Efron was drawn to the quality of the script and the unusual nature of the story. “My initial reaction was simply ‘wow,’” he says. “The story was intense and the ending blew me away. It’s a big journey for a young man. It goes to some very dark, twisted places and some very funny places, too.”

Daniels’ genius as a writer and director lies in his innate understanding of what makes the characters human and how they relate to each other, says Efron. “Each relationship and every part of this story is grounded and real in the crazy way things actually are. He understands the spaces in between. He wants to turn everything on its ear and he’s not afraid to improvise.”

The young actor experienced some of the same growing pains as his character during the shoot. “Jack learns huge life lessons from each of these very important people in his life,” he says. “I felt the same way working on the movie. I came as a blank slate. I haven’t been doing this as long some of the other actors have and I’m still learning what it is to make a movie or be an actor. This cast was always challenging me in different ways.”

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A sexually and racially charged film noir from Oscar-nominated director Lee Daniels (‘Precious’), ‘The Paperboy’ takes audiences on a wild ride through the backwaters of steamy 1960s South Florida. Based on the provocative bestselling novel by Pete Dexter (‘Mulholland Falls’, ‘Rush’), the film stars Matthew McConaughey, Zac Efron, David Oyelowo, Macy Gray, John Cusack and Academy Award-winner Nicole Kidman.

Miami Times reporter Ward Jansen (Matthew McConaughey) returns to his sleepy hometown of Lately, Florida, where a decades-old façade of Southern gentility strains against the sweeping social changes of the 1960s. Accompanied by his writing partner Yardley Acheman (David Oyelowo) and sultry death-row groupie Charlotte Bless (Nicole Kidman), Ward is chasing the career-making story of violent swamp rat Hillary Van Wetter (John Cusack), who claims to have been framed for the murder of a corrupt local sheriff. Drafting his younger brother Jack (Zac Efron) to serve as his driver, Ward tries to unravel the mystery of the crime, aided by a mountain of evidence Charlotte has amassed to prove Van Wetter’s innocence.

As the prisoner awaits the electric chair, the Jansen family’s longtime maid Anita (Macy Gray) watches in alarm as Jack becomes more and more infatuated with the alluring Charlotte. But when Ward’s investigation reveals a web of deception, it sets off an explosive chain reaction that pulls everyone involved into a quagmire of evil as dark as a Florida bayou.

Inspired by a true story, ‘The Paperboy’s tale of obsession, violence and ambition earned a nomination for the 2012 Cannes Film Festival’s highest prize, the coveted Palme d’ Or.

‘The Paperboy’ is written and directed by Lee Daniels based on the novel by Pete Dexter (‘Paris Trout’).

For more than 15 years, Lee Daniels has been challenging conventional Hollywood wisdom by making uncompromising films that shine a light onto the inner worlds of the forgotten, the unheralded and the downtrodden. First as the producer of startling and acclaimed films including ‘Monster’s Ball’ and ‘The Woodsman’, then as director of the poignant, shocking Oscar-winner ‘Precious’, Daniels has transformed characters rarely portrayed in mainstream films, including an illiterate, street-smart teen, a lonely racist prison guard and a conflicted and angry child molester, into sympathetic anti-heroes.

In his feature-film writing debut, Daniels adapted Pete Dexter’s hard-boiled crime thriller, ‘The Paperboy’, into a gritty, darkly funny and Byzantine journey set in an out-of-the-way Florida town in 1969. An incendiary mix of race, sex and deception, ‘The Paperboy’ turns a tense murder investigation into a fearless exploration of love, corruption and family bonds.

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In the tiny, rural town of Carthage, TX, assistant funeral director Bernie Tiede was one of the town’s most beloved residents. He taught Sunday school, sang in the church choir and was always willing to lend a helping hand. Everyone loved and appreciated Bernie, so it came as no surprise when he befriended Marjorie Nugent, an affluent widow who was as well known for her sour attitude as her fortune.

Bernie frequently traveled with Marjorie and even managed her banking affairs. Marjorie quickly became fully dependant on Bernie and his generosity and Bernie struggled to meet her increasing demands. Bernie continued to handle her affairs, and the townspeople went months without seeing Marjorie.

The people of Carthage were shocked when it was reported that Marjorie Nugent had been dead for some time, and Bernie Tiede was being charged with the murder.

The dark comedy ‘Bernie’, starring Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine and Matthew McConaughey is set for a limited release on April 27. In a statement, the director Richard Linklater said the following:

Back in December of 1998, I read Skip Hollandsworth’s Texas Monthly story about Bernie Tiede, Marjorie Nugent, and the town of Carthage and something just clicked. It’s hard to articulate what exactly draws one to a particular story, and what would compel one to undertake the often lengthy and often fruitless task of trying to make a movie out of a real life story.

Maybe it was my being a native East Texan and feeling like I knew everyone involved. Maybe it was Bernie’s unique character and the complex relationship between him and Marjorie. He played roles in her life from chauffer to chef to best friend and confidant. Maybe it was the interesting legal proceedings that were playing out at that time. Maybe it was what I saw as the dark humor surrounding the entire story.

I called Skip and we started talking about how it might work as a movie. I optioned the rights, and not long after we were attending some of the trial, where I would first see the real Bernie, Danny Buck, Scrappy, the many visitors from Carthage and the jurors from San Augustine where the trial had been moved.

It all ended for Bernie in the opposite way it felt it was going at the time of the article. In the movie, it is overly apparent during the trial that those on Bernie’s side truly believed that he had done nothing wrong and didn’t deserve to be punished. One witness even says “It’s not as bad as people say; he only shot her four times, not five.”

Early on, Skip gave me all his journalistic notes and the treasure was revealed: with Marjorie now gone and Bernie sitting in jail, unable to give interviews; it was what the many townspeople were saying about them that would be the record. Whether you like it or not, on a perception level, you ARE what they say you are, especially in a small town.

The majority of the story is told through townspeople’s accounts of what happened and their feelings of Bernie and Marjorie. They are the narrators. I’d never seen a movie told from the perspective of a group of gossips, but in this case it seemed like the proper narrative technique that would reveal everything you could ever really know about the town and the people involved.

And what characters! There’s no storytelling like that of a townsperson from East Texas with that deep southern drawl. It was also this unconventional storytelling device that almost kept the movie from ever getting made. But eventually, ten years later, once Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine and Matthew McConaughey had come aboard, Bernie, Marjorie, and Carthage’s story could finally be told.

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When the soft-spoken, chubby-cheeked Bernhardt Tiede II arrived for his first day of work as the assistant director of the Hawthorne Funeral Home in the little rural town of Carthage, Texas, no one was sure what to think.

The town’s barber called him “peachy and sweet.” Some men who spent their afternoons swapping stories at Leon Choate’s combination barber-and-gunsmith shop just off the town square openly speculated that he might be “a little light in the loafers.”

But it wasn’t long before Bernie, who never had an unkind word to say about anyone, became one of Carthage’s most beloved residents. His greatest attribute, however, was his ability to create beautiful funerals for Carthage’s deceased. As one townsperson said, “With Bernie doing your service, you just knew you were going to get to heaven.”

One afternoon Bernie organized the funeral for Rod Nugent, a rich Carthage oilman and chairman of Carthage’s bank. There, he met Marjorie Nugent, the town’s domineering grande dame, despised by almost everyone in Carthage for her arrogance and rude behavior. Like he did with many of the town’s widows, Bernie regularly visited Mrs. Nugent after the funeral.

Soon, she began asking him to run errands for her, to take her to both lunch and dinner, and act as her escort on trips. Then, in August 1997, in a story that made headlines in newspapers around the country, Mrs. Nugent was found dead, shot four times in the back, and buried under some frozen foods in the large, rectangular freezer in her garage.

In the dark comedy “Bernie,” directed by Richard Linklater, Jack Black plays Bernie Tiede, Shirley MacLaine plays Mrs. Nugent, and Matthew McConaughey plays the town’s blustery real-life District Attorney, Danny Buck Davidson, who was determined to get to the bottom of the crime.

“It’s my Fargo in East Texas, where I grew up” says Linklater, “a story that captures all the hilarity, friendliness, eccentricity and absolute strangeness of small-town Texas life.”

What made the story of Mrs. Nugent’s murder so peculiar was that she had been dead for nine months before people noticed she wasn’t around. (“The truth was that no one really cared about looking for her because no one missed her,” one resident said.) What made the story truly bizarre, however, was the announcement by police that Bernie not only had murdered Mrs. Nugent but had been using her money to give to people in need throughout Carthage.

He even donated $100,000 in Mrs. Nugent’s name to build a new Sunday school building at the Methodist church. Almost immediately after his arrest, Carthage citizens rallied around Bernie, going so far as to drive around the courthouse blowing their horns, and begging District Attorney Davidson not to prosecute their favorite assistant funeral home director.

“Bernie” is filled with the kinds of characters that one might think could only be invented in fiction — characters that do things that are simply unpredictable. But much of the movie is a re-telling of what actually happened. Linklater even hired numerous East Texas citizens–many of them Carthage residents who knew Bernie and Mrs. Nugent–to play minor roles or act as extras in the movie.

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Macy Gray, newly signed with 429 Records, is preparing for the release of her stunning new album “Covered”—a collection of all new recordings of handpicked songs she’s chosen to reinterpret in her own inimitable fashion.  Produced by Hal Willner (Lou Reed, Metallica), “Covered” tackles material largely drawn from indie rock songs from the last decade—interpretations her fans will be familiar with as she’s been performing them live over the years.

The album contains biting, dark signature tracks such as Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up” or My Chemical Romance’s “Teenagers” which Gray subversively overhauls into something wholly her own.  Also included are short skits featuring J.B. Smoove, Nicole Scherzinger and a guest appearance by Idris Elba.

“Covered” will be released worldwide on 429 Records March 27th.In addition, Macy is planning a worldwide tour and has wrapped filming with director Lee Daniels (Precious) for his forthcoming film ‘The Paperboy” which also stars John Cusack, Zach Effron, Nicole Kidman and Matthew McConaughey. The film will debut at Cannes in May with confirmed worldwide distribution in October 2012.

Since her dazzling debut introduced this singular talent to the masses, Macy has forged an uncompromising musical path beholden to her own vision and garnering accolades at every juncture.  With “Covered” Macy has turned the cover album concept on its ear choosing edgy contemporary choices and approaching them in an innovative and uncompromising way. Not surprising considering she’s spent her career defying expectations and stretching musical boundaries.

Says Macy on being inspired by Nina Simone’s cover songs: “She didn’t worry about what people would think or how they would compare it to anybody else. I saw how she just took that song and every song she ever did and made them her own.  So I went in with the confidence that we could do whatever we wanted.”

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